Destinies

  • Digital breast imaging cannot match human touch, yet!

    FormerMember
    FormerMember

    Radiology departments are feeling the strain as workflow demands increase year by year – over 40 million imaging tests were carried out in 2017, helped by sophisticated systems supporting clinical expertise and gathering information along treatment pathways.

    Recent media reports highlight the pressure to provide accurate and timely diagnoses, a theme that has inevitably led to clinical decisions relying more and…

  • Engineering a cancer remedy

    FormerMember
    FormerMember

    For years, the foundations of cancer treatment were surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy.

    More recent drugs have centred on targeting the immune system to defeat the spread of cancer cells. The drug rituximab, for example, triggers the immune system to attack and kill cancer cells. Another targeted drug called ibrutinib blocks chemical messengers (enzymes) that stop cells growing and dividing in diseases such as…

  • Robots and key holes

    FormerMember
    FormerMember

    Medical robot technology has been around for longer than most people think; Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital, for instance, installed a da Vinci robot in 2004 – upgrading it in 2011 to a dual operating console with 4 robotic arms.

    It embodies many of the advancements that have been made since the advent of robotics and is a component part of a cyber generated evolution that is now termed the 4th industrial…

  • Artificial Intelligence directing cancer treatment? It’s frightening…

    FormerMember
    FormerMember

    It is only about 10 years or so, since the first human genome was sequenced; it took years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Such amounts of money are, of course, far beyond anything the NHS could contemplate spending on a narrowly defined objective. Yet, by 2012 an associated mission was being launched by the NHS in an awesome programme called the 100,000 Genomes Project.

    It was set up by Genomics (an NHS company…

  • A CRISPR way to tackle cancer

    FormerMember
    FormerMember

    Science imposes its immense impact on medical advancement so rapidly these days that a technique that was introduced in 2014 seems almost historic now. News of a recent study by researchers however, has brought the gene-editing breakthrough of that year back into the glare of public spotlight.

     

    As with so many other new treatments this one is known by its abbreviated format - Crispr-Cas9. Its obscure name nevertheless…